


the more persistent spirit

by ConvenientAlias



Category: Le Fantôme de l'Opéra | Phantom of the Opera & Related Fandoms
Genre: Getting Together, M/M, Raoul Whump, just a little of it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-29
Updated: 2018-04-29
Packaged: 2019-04-29 09:48:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,279
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14470041
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ConvenientAlias/pseuds/ConvenientAlias
Summary: After Raoul meets the Daroga for the first time, it seems like he's always around. Which makes it rather noticeable when he's not.





	the more persistent spirit

At first Raoul didn’t notice the Daroga at all. He blended well into the background, really, and while Christine mentioned him from time to time in conversation, usually in reference to Erik, their paths did not really cross until Raoul had been back in touch with Christine for two months. Then they met for the first time.

“You ought to be more careful if you’re going to be seeing Miss Daae.”

“Screw you!”

From then on, it seemed like they were bumping into each other constantly.

To be fair, many of their meetings did not go as badly as the first one. At first, Raoul was just frustrated because they ran into each other during one of those periods where Christine had told him to stay away from her for his own good, and also right after a lecture along similar lines from Philippe. It had seemed like the universe was trying to wreck his and Christine’s relationship, and hearing someone else preach at him, he reacted poorly. But he came to realize that the Daroga did have good reasons for his advice.

“I must give you warning,” he said one evening. It was their fifth meeting, maybe, and he’d brought Raoul up to the roof for a private conversation, and Raoul had followed even though he wasn’t entirely sure why. “Even though I know you won’t listen to me.”

“Why?” Raoul said.

“No one ever does. This is a city of Europeans, after all. And you all know so much better than the resident crazy Persian.” The Daroga brought a cigar out of his pocket and began inspecting it.

Raoul bit his lip. He had to admit he did sometimes dismiss the Daroga as a little off his rocker—but, he told himself, surely he would have done that whether the Daroga were Persian or not. He didn’t listen to anyone who told him to stay away from Christine, after all. “It’s not that I think you’re crazy…”

“Don’t you?”

“What I meant is why do you have to give me warning? I’ve told you before, I’m a grown man…” He scowled at the Daroga’s amused snort. “…and my relationship with Christine is perfectly platonic, and besides that, none of your business surely. No matter what this Erik may think of it.”

“It’s not personal. I warn everyone not to displease Erik. It is my burden—the price I pay for saving his life. One might call me his keeper, though that’s a bit more poetic than I’d usually put it.” The Daroga took out a lighter now, too, metal and compact, and struck up a small flame. It took him a couple tries to light the cigar.

“I’ve heard your warnings. You are freed of the responsibility.”

“You’ve heard but you haven’t listened. So, my responsibility is not yet dispensed.”

“You can’t expect me to give up a friend of mine as a favor to a man I don’t know.”

“I don’t expect anything of you,” the Daroga said. “But I’m telling you, the way you are going now is very foolish.”

“I’m never going to listen.”

“Then I suppose I will have to keep telling you.” The Daroga shrugged. He offered Raoula  cigar, possibly trying to alleviate his annoyance. Raoul refused. He didn’t smoke, though he didn’t mind the smell so much. The Daroga’s cigars, at the very least, smelled better than Philippe’s. He wondered where the Daroga got them.

Perhaps the Daroga noticed Raoul inhaling the scent with a little bit too much interest, because his next puff was aimed directly at Raoul’s face. When Raoul was done hacking and waving the cloud away, the Daroga was already halfway to the door down from the roof.

Raoul did not follow him. It was clear the Daroga considered himself to be dismissed, done…for now. So Raoul looked up at the sky, where the sun was still setting, though it was almost done. Purple and blue and just a tinge of orange.

Those were the colors he would associate with the Daroga from then on, though the Daroga himself most often wore brown, black and occasionally a little bit of red.

 

 

“It’s not that I dislike the man,” he told Christine. “It’s just that he never leaves me alone. Three times this week he’s accosted me. Certainly your Erik may be a threat, but I’ve barely ever caught a glimpse of him—for sure he is a less persistent spirit than this one.”

“Mhm.” Christine had started embroidering a handkerchief, which she said she was going to give to La Sorelli when it was complete. She was very focused on the curve of a fleur-de-lys, and hadn’t looked up for the past five minutes of Raoul’s rant.

“There is something honorable about it, of course. That he’s taken on this responsibility to protect people from Erik…well, it really is honorable. Morally speaking, you have to respect that. It would be much easier to let Erik do as he wishes—it can’t be easy. Well, it really is very noble, in a way.”

“Mhm.”

“But it’s not like he has to do it. Erik will do as he pleases anyway, and I can’t stop seeing you entirely just because a nice man tells me to! Every time he asks me he seems a little more tired when I refuse. He’s beginning to wear on my patience. There is a look in his eyes…well, it’s very hard on me, Christine, and I’m worried I will begin to soften at this rate. But I can hardly give in to him. It’s harder to say no to him every time. You can’t imagine how disappointed he looks.”

“Mhm.”

“And really I just wish he would stop bothering me about it. I hate arguing with him. It makes me feel like I’m the one who’s at fault here! But really, it’s not that I dislike him…”

“No, I really didn’t have that impression.”

“What?”

Christine looked up from the handkerchief, a small smile on her face. “That you disliked him.”

“Well, I don’t.”

“Mhm.”

Raoul blinked. Christine was looking much too smug. “What were we talking about?”

“The last time you ran into the Daroga.”

“Oh, right. Well, it’s not like it bothered me, exactly…”

 

 

“So tell me about Erik, then.”

The hour was later than before. Tonight the sky was painted navy blue, dotted with white here and there. There was only a sliver of moon, too. Light came from the stars, from the streetlights below, and from the embers of the Daroga’s cigar, which sent glittering light skittering over his smooth, dark skin.

“I’ve told you he’s dangerous,” the Daroga said. “What more do you need to know?”

“I don’t need to know anything. I’ve told you I don’t care about him.” Raoul leaned against the wall. “But you are always talking about him, so you may call this idle curiosity.”

“Then you’ll pardon me if I do not indulge it.”

“Why not? Surely it’s harmless.”

“He is my friend, after a fashion. At any rate he is not a circus attraction or a freak.”

“All right. Then you may continue your vague warnings, I suppose.”

The Daroga did not. He had apparently given all the ominous censure he felt was required for the night. But he did not scuttle away, as Raoul had supposed he might, as he usually did. He smoked in silence. The grey-white smoke stood out against the indigo sky. Raoul, as always, wanted to suck it in. But that was not exactly what he wanted. It was more that he wanted to taste the tobacco flavor on the Daroga’s own breath and feel the scrape of his beard against his chin and lips. It was less that he wanted to smell and inhale, more that he wanted to taste and touch.

Desire like this was not alien to him, but it was futile. He pushed it aside.

“Will you tell me about something else, perhaps?” he asked.

“What sort of something else?”

“Persia, maybe. Your past…everyone says you are a figure of mystery.”

“I am not a circus attraction either.”

No, he was attractive in a very different way. Raoul put his hands in his pockets. “All right then, what did you think of the opera tonight?”

“What, _Hannibal_?”

 “Unless you were in a different opera house than me.”

“To speak heresy, I rather miss Carlotta’s rendition of ‘Think of Me’.”

Raoul laughed. “That’s hardly heresy.” Though he wouldn’t say such a thing to Christine, certainly Philippe felt the same way. “But really, you didn’t enjoy Christine’s performance at all?”

“She is melancholy, very melancholy. She lacks la Carlotta’s triumphant brass. They are both fantastic singers.” The Daroga sighed. “I fear, though, that this is the end of an era.”

“Did you love la Carlotta?”

“That would put it a bit strongly. But she is a woman with great character, and this may well be the end of her.”

“Perhaps you should give her warnings rather than me.”

“I have tried.”

There was something very defeatist about that sentence, its three short syllables, the look on the Daroga’s face. But what could one say to it? Raoul didn’t exactly listen to him either, and what could be done about Erik, neither of them knew. He cleared his throat and stuck out his hand. “Here, perhaps I’ll try one of your cigars after all.”

“I am smoking the last one I had on me.”

“Oh.”

“You may try it if you like…”

“No, no, I will let you have it.” He did not think he could bear to touch his lips where the Daroga had also sucked.

“Suit yourself, then.” The Daroga stared out over the wall. “It is a lovely night.”

What would be idle conversation from anyone else sounded profound coming from him. “It is indeed.”

 

 

 “He really is an intriguing man. Not a fan of yours, though…but that’s all right, you can’t please everyone. The way he talks about la Carlotta I could almost love her myself! Of course I will always appreciate your performances more…”

“That’s fine, Raoul.”

“But what an evening. The air is getting colder, but it is clear. You should have seen how he looked, silhouetted only by darkness…though I must admit, the opera may have put me in a certain frame of mind…but I do believe people exist who are objectively poetic, and there is nothing…”

 

 

And then the Daroga went missing. Five days passed, and Raoul did not see him at all. Then a full week. Then, two full weeks.

“It seems you were wrong to warn me, my friend,” Raoul said to himself. “It seems you should have warned yourself.”

He did not own a gun, but Philippe did. He tucked it into a pocket of a long coat—the paths beneath the opera house would surely be chilly, chilly and damp. He wore his good boots as well. Christine, after a large amount of pleading on his part, showed him the entrance behind her mirror. He headed out.

 

 

The tunnels under the opera house were dark in a way that was absolute. It was not like the friendly dusk of the rooftop, where stars showed you the free sky ahead and lamps reminded you of civilization. Here, the only light came from Raoul’s torch, and the occasional reflection from a puddle.

Silent, too, except for his footsteps. At first he tried to walk quietly, worrying that Erik might find him from the noise and attack. Then he realized that there was nothing subtle about his approach in the first place. He began to sing in order to fill the silence, an aria from _Hannibal_. His voice was not as good as Christine’s certainly. He tried to imitate Carlotta’s intonations, the arrogance of her trills, wondering if the Daroga would be amused to hear him.

His voice echoed back, unimpressive, from the bare stone walls. He could catch the quiver in them, but he told himself the echo effect manufactured it. Erik did not scare him. Erik never had.

He tripped.

There had been a pothole or something—not even a respectable pit or trip wire, just a dent in the stone path—and with the torch in one hand he couldn’t catch himself in time. He fell hard, leg twisting under him. The torch, which he tried to keep hold of, almost burnt him as he dropped it. When it hit the ground, it went out before he could pick it up again.

The darkness fluttered in to fill what before had been lit space.

Raoul’s ankle hurt. More than it should have. He clenched his jaw for a long minute, waiting for the pain to die down, the initial impact to pass. When it did, he tried to stand. Bad idea. Instead he knelt.

Think logically. Think logically.

First, he needed light. He had a lighter on him, borrowed again from Philippe. He groped around in his pockets, but couldn’t find it. Either it had slipped out over his walk or fallen when he fell. He felt around the ground around him. Nothing. Nothing but the hard cylinder of the fallen torch, now a lost cause.

For a moment he felt white noise fill his ears. He swallowed, and waited for that to pass too. Focused on breathing.

To get this far, he’d walked for maybe fifteen minutes. He was quite a ways into the tunnels now. He might be close to Erik’s house or not, no idea—no one had a map to this place, not even Christine. The Daroga might have known, were he here. The Daroga.

Raoul swallowed again.

If his ankle was as badly hurt as it seemed to be, he wouldn’t do any good in a confrontation with Erik right now. He would have to head back. Perhaps report the disappearance to the police (though he knew how little they’d do about a foreigner being missing for a period of two weeks, nothing at all really, especially when the only possible culprit was a phantom), perhaps wait to recover for a couple days and then try again. But he had to get back.

He stood, putting all wait on one foot. He could stand straight like this. Then he stepped forward, and agony sent him sprawling again, though at least this time he caught himself. His hands were scraped, and he probed one with the fingers of the other, then the reverse. No blood, just a lot of pebbles. As far as he could tell.

He would have to crawl. At least his ankle didn’t bother him much when he was on his knees. At least there had not been many turns to get here.

Except. He could not remember which way was out. There would be no way for him to know if he was going back to the opera house or closer to Erik, to a fight he could not win.

“I’m sorry, Daroga,” he muttered. “I think I’ve messed this up a bit.”

His words echoed back at him. And mentally he could hear the Daroga’s voice as well: You idiot. I told you to be careful.

“Sorry,” he repeated, quietly. “I really was an idiot.”

“You’re not wrong.”

He jumped, and in his surprise bashed his ankle against the floor, which made him yelp. Behind him a light flared up, softer than his own torch but better than nothing. He looked back to see a dark figure, the only clear feature a white, full-face mask.

“Erik.” He scrambled backwards on his hands, sending twinges through his ankle. Erik laughed softly.

“Calm down. Really, what stories has that old fool been telling you? You’ll only hurt himself.” A strong hand in black leather grabbed Raoul’s shoulder, and he stilled. “So you’re looking for the Daroga.”

“What did you do with him?”

“Not a thing, you young imbecile. Believe it or not, not everything that happens in this damn city is my fault. That’s what you get for listening to a gossiper.” Erik yanked Raoul to his feet. “Can you walk?”

“Let go of me.”

“I suppose I’ll have to carry you out of here.” Erik sighed. “Tell the Daroga he owes me a favor.”

 

 

The doctor told Raoul not to walk without a crutch for at least a week. Philippe thanked him and gave Raoul a stern talking-to. It was a depressing day overall.

But two days later, the Daroga came to visit.

“Erik sent me a letter. It’s the first time he’s written to me without it being a death threat in three years.” The Daroga settled next to Raoul on the parlor sofa. “You interrupted my vacation.”

“You were on vacation?”

“You know, I might get around a lot, but I’m not always around.” The Daroga shook his head. “I have friends in Orleans. Sometimes I like to get out of Paris for a few days.”

“You were gone for two weeks.”

“I was gone for one week.”

“Well, I hadn’t seen you in two.” Raoul crossed his arms. “You’re always saying Erik is dangerous…”

“He isn’t to me. We have an understanding.”

“Well, I was worried.”

The Daroga nodded. He reached over and touched Raoul’s hand, curling his fingers around it. “So I gathered.”

There was no one around to see it. Philippe was out on the town, and the servants were busy. And with that touch, Raoul had just been given the first glimpse of hope since he had met the Daroga for the first time. So he leaned over and gave the Daroga a kiss on the lips.

If it fell through, he could always say it was a Parisian custom.

The Daroga kissed back, bristley but gentle. Raoul sighed.

Or, he could always say that he was in love with the Daroga and had wanted to do this for weeks. There were options.

“You kept track of how long it had been since you saw me,” the Daroga said. “You’re adorable.”

“You show up every other day.”

“I do not.”

“Well, you did for a while.” Raoul put a hand around the back of the Daroga’s neck. “I liked it. I like our meetings. Though it would be nice to talk about something other than Erik for a while.”

“Erik. You’ve put me in the red with him.”

“That was an accident.”

“I wouldn’t be better off if you’d actually made it all the way down there and attacked him—Erik wrote me you had a gun…”

“Anyway, that’s all over and done with and I think it all came out fine in the end,” Raoul said brightly. “And I said I did not want to talk about him.”

“Oh, so you want to talk about how you’re an idiot in abstract terms?”

“Or we could just talk about opera. Or, you know. Anything else.”

The Daroga smiled. “All right. Opera. You missed a good one tonight. Carlotta actually had a solo, for the first time in months.”

“I’ll see it in a week, I’m sure. It’ll still be showing.”

“Mm. Perhaps we can sit together.”

“You have a box?”

“No, I sit in general seating, like the rest of the populace.” The Daroga squeezed Raoul’s hand. “You might try it for once.”

“I might,” Raoul agreed. “Now tell me more about Carlotta.”

“Well, her best solo was a love song. She’s always been good at those.” The Daroga cleared his throat and hummed a few chords. “This one wasn’t a tragedy. She actually ended up with her lover.”

“I like those ones. I think I’ll enjoy seeing it.”

“Mm. It’s a delight.”

**Author's Note:**

> I'm becoming fond of Daraoulga, especially combined with Raoul whump. Also my headcanon that the Daroga smokes a lot grows stronger.  
> Comments would be much appreciated!


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